


Back from the abyss

by lutaski



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-20
Updated: 2013-06-20
Packaged: 2017-12-15 13:30:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/850086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lutaski/pseuds/lutaski
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim's thoughts while waiting to awake</p>
            </blockquote>





	Back from the abyss

He sat and listened to the sounds of life going on around him. The drip of the rain against the window, the murmur of voices from the next room, the sound of a laugh track for a bad sitcom someone was watching down the hall. They all meant connections, real or fake but they made you part of something as grand as nature or as intimate as a lover. He just could not make himself care that he no longer had any. Life moved on around him, and he remained hidden behind his closed eyes. All he had to do was reach out, with a look, a word or a gesture, but all of that was beyond him at the moment. 

If he let himself he could remember what is was like to be part of the world, a friendship, a marriage. Instead he chose to lock those things in the back of his mind and exist in this perpetual state of twilight. Here he could no longer hurt others, but most importantly they could no longer hurt him.

If there was no past there could be no future, because once he had something to move toward there was something to move away from. So he stayed in the now. No thinking, no moving, no feeling. Just existing. Funny he thought that was he had been doing years ago when going through the motions of life had been hard. 

He had to stop, thinking was bad, it opened options. He had to go back to just breathing. One breath at a time. Inhale. Exhale. Repeat. There was no room for anything more. If there were he might be tempted to go back, to rejoin the living, to begin another round of heartaches.

This was so much easier, and he had had a lifetime of hard. There had been moments of pure joy and bliss, but they had always come either with or at a price. He was thinking to much again, he was becoming tolerant of the drugs, maybe it was time to fake the pain again, so they would increase the dosage. It was becoming too hard to stay in the oblivion he craved. As they moved him back to his bed he heard himself whimper and felt the needle prick his arm sending him back to the darkness. He had given up on himself and hoped the others had given up on him also.

He sat and listened to the sounds of life going on around him. The drip of the rain against the window, the murmur of voices from the next room, the sound of a laugh track for a bad sitcom someone was watching down the hall. They all meant connections, real or fake but they made you part of something as grand as nature or as intimate as a lover. He just could not make himself care that he no longer had any. Life moved on around him, and he remained hidden behind his closed eyes. All he had to do was reach out, with a look, a word or a gesture, but all of that was beyond him at the moment. 

He felt himself becoming aware again, and wanted to scream at the unfairness of the universe for not letting stay in his cocoon of darkness. He once again concentrated on his breathing trying to regain the sense of mere existence, but he was distracted by the difference he felt around him. It didn’t matter what stimulus they provided if he didn’t want to live they couldn’t force him to. So he sat and waited for oblivion to return.  
And someone sat next to him and took his hand and wouldn’t let go. They were making it harder to keep the voices in his head away, the ones telling him he wasn’t alone, he didn’t need to be nor did he deserve to be. He waited and waited for the hand to leave and every time it did, it was just replaced with another hand or voice telling him he was home and they were not going to leave him trapped in his mind. Why couldn’t they realize that was the last place he wanted to be, in his head with his memories and their voices. The blackness that they kept pulling him out of was his only home now. 

He sat and listened to the sounds of life going on around him. The drip of the rain against the window, the murmur of voices from the next room, the sound of a laugh track for a bad sitcom someone was watching down the hall. They all meant connections, real or fake but they made you part of something as grand as nature or as intimate as a lover. He just could not make himself care at the moment. Life moved on around him, and he remained hidden behind his closed eyes. All he had to do was reach out, with a look, a word or a gesture, but all of that was beyond him at the moment. 

He had finally found a place of peace. Listening to the spring rain fall softly outside the window, he knew this moment sprawled across his bed with his lover snuggled against his back wouldn’t last for much longer, but for now it was enough as their world came alive around them, and for the first time he truly had no regrets that he had let them drag him back from that dark abyss.


End file.
